


a danger that seeped from your skull

by niffin



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Acephobia, Anal Sex, Blood and Injury, Canon Asexual Character, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), F/M, Humiliation, Mating Bites, Mind Control, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Outdoor Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, S3 spoilers, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:15:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26409346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niffin/pseuds/niffin
Summary: Something in his next shuddering breath made him snap his head up in time to watch Daisy lope into sight. Heat kindled under his skin, sweat breaking out all over his body, muscles seizing up and making him curl in on himself. He clenched his hands convulsively, barely noticing when he broke some fingernails on a rock in the damp soil, unable to look away. Everything else blurred into irrelevance - Daisy was in crisp, perfect detail. Her feral smile. The satisfaction in her steps, boots crunching in the leaves. She occupied his mind so completely that before he realized it she was upon him, dropping to one knee to tilt his chin up towards her.They took deep breaths at the same time.set in episode 91. what if the hunt gave its avatars more animalistic behaviors? what if no one but its avatars and its victims knew that?
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 12
Kudos: 60





	a danger that seeped from your skull

**Author's Note:**

> Would you believe me if I said I had this completed before 178 came out? It was kismet and made me post this, although I do intend to write a short epilogue set in 178. I played fast and loose with a/b/o here; it's my first time writing it so I picked the tropes I liked and thought I could write. Also, Daisy has a dick. I leave it up to the reader to decide why.
> 
> Heed the tags and archive warnings.

Daisy slammed him back against the tree. The tape recorder still quietly spun where she'd dropped it in her fury, dispassionately capturing any choked sounds Jon managed to make with her hand clenched tight around his throat. He was not a short man, but she managed to slide him up with superhuman strength until he was on his toes, frantically clawing at her hand. She placed his pocketknife at his neck; deliberately didn't exert enough pressure for the dull point to pierce his skin as she hissed, "You brought a knife. So we go in through the voicebox."

He struggled to apologize, plead for mercy but knew with a sick certainty that even if she cared to hear it, he would still die here.

He would die a coward. He closed his eyes as it finally broke his skin. And stopped. It hurt, blood oozing around the blade punched a few millimeters into his neck, a point that now felt far too sharp scratching him as he swallowed in terror.

Daisy inhaled slowly. On her exhale he opened his eyes and saw her vertical pupils fixed on his neck. Her hand loosened and he slipped down, widening the cut. He started to cry out until he felt his larynx vibrate against the point of the knife, swallowed the cry, and stayed very, very still. The blood streamed faster, burning against his chilled skin. 

She withdrew the knife. He could finally gasp for air, though whatever was happening could only buy him a few more minutes of life at most. She licked the tip of the knife and those catlike pupils dilated. He lowered his estimate of his remaining time on this earth to a few seconds. 

She lunged at Jon and he knew exactly why before her body pressed against him and her teeth touched him. He screamed as they sank into the curve of muscle between his neck and shoulder. He wanted to live. He tried to throw her off, rammed a knee into her stomach, shoved at her face, dug his fingers into her cheek. (What was he turning into? He had meant to get her eyes. He wanted to live. He knew he wouldn't. And yet.) He knew her jaw would close and her impossibly sharp teeth would meet and his flesh would be rent from him and he wondered what would actually kill him, the trauma or blood loss -

Then she let go entirely and dropped back, letting his weakened knees collapse. They looked at each other, her poised in anticipation, him shaking on the ground. Her figure blurred through the tears of pain. He put pressure on the wound, realized instantly how much that hurt, then pulled his hand away to look at the blood; he was no doctor, but there wasn’t enough blood to think he would die by exsanguination. Regardless, he'd be dead too soon from other, Daisy-related causes for that to matter. She bared her teeth at him, and where they weren’t stained dark with blood they almost glowed pearly luminescent. Like her eyes. "For a weakling, you led me on a merry chase. Let's finish it properly. You’ll appreciate it."

Jon thought about it and was unable to control a sickening hope bubbling up in his gut. "You… want me to run."

"Don't you want to run?" She unbuckled her holster and placed it on the hood of the car. 

He watched her disbelievingly. "Yes! But you'll still catch and kill me. What could I possibly gain?"

She grinned and placed his knife next to her gun. "A guaranteed five minute head start."

The math checked out: that was five more than he would have staying here. 

Daisy stood between him and the car, next to Mike Crew's crumpled corpse. The way back to the road was in that direction. She would either keep her word about the head start or not. So he dismissed the fact that it had taken thirty minutes of driving through the woods to get to Daisy's designated murder spot and bolted. She made no move to stop him, but as he ran past her he saw her lick her lips. Heard her laugh. And… smelled something strange emanating from her that made his heart pound and stomach lurch and, if it was even possible, increased his motivation to keep running.

Jon never particularly cared for the wild outdoors or the splendors of nature, and now his opinion soured further. At least Georgie had given him jeans. His habitual trousers would have done a far poorer job of protecting him against the undergrowth lashing at his legs. If he survived, and if he made it back to the Institute, and if he had managed to retain his employment and even his managerial capacity, he fervently resolved to be more permissive about practical casual wear in the workplace. He remembered his tendency to cope with mortal danger by exerting a modicum of control in the form of gallows humor just in time to snap himself back to the here and now, narrowly avoiding falling directly into a sodden gully.

His dodge turned into a stumble and he caught himself against a gnarled oak, alarmed at the near miss. He took a few deep breaths, puzzled that he was winded already, and without a stitch in his side either. The sensation of the ridged bark as his hand fell away tingled gently and lingered: like a pleasant buzzing version of the pounding agony in his raw burned hand. He stared fixedly at the bloody handprint glistening in the lambent moonlight until an almost teasing snarl somewhere behind him broke his concentration and sent adrenaline racing through him. 

He took off running, avoiding the mud for better traction and less obvious footprints. He had no illusions about whether that would help him evade Daisy, but maybe, if he kept his chase more interesting than his capture… well. The longer he stalled, the more time a deus ex machina had to appear. Ironic that Daisy herself had materialized, a vengeful god, to free him from Mike Crew. He wished she hadn't. He preferred his miracles to want him a little more alive. Or at least, not prolong the suffering. Not to make him hope. 

He ran through the mist and as it chilled his fevered skin, a wave of vertigo set his head spinning. Had it been five minutes yet, or fifteen? Terror made time run strangely, Jon knew, but it seemed to be passing in dribs and drabs. He forced his limbs to move but every sensory detail in his surroundings demanded to make itself known. Of course he felt the throbbing in his burned hand, the wounds Daisy had inflicted, his aching knees and ankles. But there was no reason the cold water soaking through his trainers, or the distant trill of a nightjar, or the scent of juniper as he crashed through their branches, should be so distracting. It infuriated him - he needed to run, to… His own pounding heartbeat impressed itself upon his consciousness until he could think of nothing but the heat and the dizziness. He was looking for something he needed. He couldn't remember what it was. 

Escape - was that it? A strange disappointment curled in his gut. Or rescue. That was closer. He needed someone - that was part of it -

“Jo-o-on.”

It came from directly in front of him. Panic lanced up his chest and he staggered a few steps. Towards the sound. Towards Daisy. That wasn’t smart. Surprise cut through the fear. Why did he do that? He wavered, trying to understand. He... needed something. What was it? 

“Are you waiting for me, Jon?”

He thought about waiting and after a moment decided he would not. He thought about running, then took another moment to decide he wanted to run away from her. He'd gotten turned around but it didn't matter what direction anymore, just that he ran. How could he be indecisive right now? Daisy wanted to kill him, just like she’d killed another monster not half an hour ago... the predator red in tooth and claw hunting her prey. That image snagged in his mind as his shirt snagged on bare branches, circling in his mind: Daisy catching his scent in the wind, the taste of his blood in her throat, ready to bear him to the ground and to. And to subdue him, claim him. Take what was rightfully hers in whatever way she wished, because that was what she needed, and what he needed was to give it to her -

Jon whimpered as he fell to his hands and knees. That thought, though he had only the vaguest idea what it meant, pushed him over some precipice he'd never known existed. Near delirium swirled in his head, weighed him down. He registered nothing about his surroundings but what he felt on his skin, and that in torturous intensity. Alarm bells still pealed somewhere in his mind: _don’t you know, you fool, you can’t let her win? Wake up to reality!_ But the necessity of easing the ache aborted any action he could have taken. Daisy was close, and she had to know what he was starving for. 

Something in his next shuddering breath made him snap his head up in time to watch Daisy lope into sight. Heat kindled under his skin, sweat breaking out all over his body, muscles seizing up and making him curl in on himself. He clenched his hands convulsively, barely noticing when he broke some fingernails on a rock in the damp soil, unable to look away. Everything else blurred into irrelevance - Daisy was in crisp, perfect detail. Her feral smile. The satisfaction in her steps, boots crunching in the leaves. She occupied his mind so completely that before he realized it she was upon him, dropping to one knee to tilt his chin up towards her. 

They took deep breaths at the same time. 

That scent like cold lightning slammed into him, triggered hyperventilation that coated his mouth, his throat, his lungs with more of itself, leeching his oxygen away. Soft sobs escaped him with every ragged exhale. God. What was this? It was nothing like his earlier mortal terror, desire to live. He felt like he would die if he didn’t get what he needed. He felt like he was willing to die to get what he needed. He needed it so badly he couldn’t think about what it was he needed.

Daisy’s breathing slowed, evened. Her smile widened. She said gently, “Better, isn’t it? I don't always let prey enjoy the trap.” His heart pounded so fast it skipped beats as she traced his cheekbone with a finger, rested it on his bottom lip. He didn’t think before catching the fingertip in his mouth. Her laugh and the taste of his own blood made that bone deep ache flare.

“Daisy…” He moaned it breathlessly. “What is it? I want it - what… do I want?”

Moonlight fell on the shallow furrows he’d clawed in her cheek as she tilted her head. Her gaze flicked over him again, assessing. “You don’t know? Pathetic bookworm like you, I suppose you wouldn’t.” 

Confusion (and a familiar humiliated outrage) rose in his chest; the question cleared a small space for itself in his clouded mind. He forced it out of his mouth, eyes on hers. “ **What am I feeling** -”

Suddenly snarling, Daisy grabbed him by the hair and threw him face first to the ground. He grunted in pain and tried to get up; mere force of habit, since Daisy’s touch, violent as it was, had taken all conscious intent from him again. He didn’t get far before she straddled his thighs and pushed him back down flat with a hand between his shoulder blades. He moaned in - in some emotion, some sensation. Some desire. Desire?

An unexpected weight pressed against his ass and he arched into it, grinding backwards, seeking more contact, yearning for the feel of skin on skin, a touch on his own aching erection - oh. He clawed scraps of clarity together as he slotted the pieces into place. 

“ _Daisy!_ ”

She hummed in acknowledgement as she tore his jacket off his shoulders. Ripped Georgie’s sweat-soaked _What the Ghost_ t-shirt to expose his fevered flesh to chilled air, yanked off his belt and jeans, pulled his hips up to meet hers. "Think of it like this: you won't die a virgin. Lot of people, that's all they ask for."

Jon was not a virgin and he was not asking for this, his whimpering moans notwithstanding. Had in fact never asked for it again after satisfying that lingering scientific curiosity, and he’d come to terms with what that meant long ago. No wonder he hadn’t recognized what was happening until genitals were _literally_ being touched - He could barely hear himself think over the pounding of his heart. All these sensations trapped him - buried his ego under the id he was accustomed to ignoring. But now he knew, could apply what remained of his rationality to… well, not the possibility of escape. His id and ego agreed that was impossible. But maybe to hold onto a sliver of himself as he was extinguished. 

He choked out, “You -” Daisy grazed his thigh first with fingertips then with claws and drew a sharp, anguished cry from him that rose as she dragged them up and over his hip. “Chase was a farce - you already won - could’ve _raped_ me without it -”

Daisy pressed her own erection against him, intensifying that ache into something so fierce it felt like his skin would split from holding it, like his flesh fractured when she tongued a line up his spine, like he melted where she laid her weight across his back. “That’s a strong word from someone who admits he wants it.”

He realized he’d reached up to keep her mouth on his shoulder and dropped his hand. His jaw clenched tight, tighter as she prodded his ass, said through gritted teeth, “You _made_ me want - somehow - **why?** ”

She was too distracted to resist the compulsion, or perhaps she didn't think there was anything his questions could do to her now. He certainly thought so. She paused, the tip of her cock teasing his entrance. “Little monster, Jonathan Sims… I wanted to make sure you knew that I could do anything I wanted to you. And exactly how little you could have done about it.” She slid into him. He thought the rigid tension in his body from fear and anger and Daisy-fueled arousal would make it hurt, but it didn’t. It was nice and easy, one scorchingly smooth motion that filled him, and filled him, and filled him, and he felt whole, complete. He liked this, and she would give him more and he would like that too, and this was right. She was right. 

Her thighs bumped gently against his, and Daisy traced a slippery finger around where they were joined. Two fingers. He realized then that something slick coated his thighs and that the keening sound echoing in the clearing came from his throat. He forced himself to realize: that couldn't happen, so it wasn't his. He bit down on his hand to stifle the sound - he could taste her scent there, and pleasure demanded to express itself through full body shudders instead. Don’t let Daisy see. He shook his head a fraction, his blunt teeth unable to puncture his flesh, but if he focused on the pain, pushed all the rest away -

She pulled back slowly, her breath skating over the bite she'd left in his shoulder earlier, over his ear. The first brush of her slick fingers against his cock wrung wordless desperate sounds from his throat. She bit him, mouth overlapping the first one; slammed her hips forward; wrapped her hand around him and tugged. It was impossible to restrain the howl that ripped from his throat. He couldn’t stop himself from grabbing her hand to move it faster over his cock, so she caught his wrists and pinned them above his head for him.

He drowned in his dire need. He knew his life would end when she finished with him and he didn’t care. Could this really be him? A monster offering itself up to a monster to be devoured and destroyed; and adding insult to that imminent fatal injury, begging for it. Begging for every hard thrust, thanking her for every bruise and laceration. If he still had any volition, she was wresting it from him. Making him give it to her. There was nothing he could have done with it anyway. 

He did not know what to do. So he gave up. He let his body want what it wanted, do what it wished. Instead he pulled the last of his willpower together to describe. To narrate. To put reality at a remove, no matter how slight, by articulating it. Reduce the inexpressible to what was expressible. 

Since he was to die, he was determined to _comprehend_ it.

(Later, quite some time later, when he was no longer a homeless fugitive, when his chest no longer ached constantly with terror, when he’d managed to convince himself he’d locked it all away and was perfectly functional again, he saw a pocketknife laying among many others in a display case in Pittsburgh remarkably similar to the one he’d lost in that nameless forest, and he realized this tactic had not worked the way he envisioned. Or perhaps it worked better. He had blessedly scant sensory memories of the… climax. But he could recall his thought process in meticulous, exhaustive detail.)

_I am on my elbows and knees and arched up against Daisy. She moves away and I cry out with loss, and she moves close and I cry out in pain, and I want..._

(the facts) 

_My throat is sore and my voice rings in our ears though it cracks and shatters with every exhale... I like it, I like_

(just the facts)

 _She is licking the bites and clawing down my ribs and I am, I can't…_

(find the words)

_...Taste, I can taste her like she tastes me, and it pulses in my head, under my skin, it feels… I cannot stop feeling_

(then say how it feels)

_Too much!_

(say it. say it. say)

_I feel hot and hurt and horrified and she is pushing against me she is pushing into me she is around and over and in my body and my mind_

(not all of -) 

_it’s all hers_

(not all of it) 

_Stop I want I need to stop **thinking** _

(An intrusive, vivid recollection of himself in grade school. Bouncing his leg and doodling on his classwork as the stuffy teacher who is always confiscating his books drones, “Being objective means considering the facts without distorting them with personal feelings or opinions.” He frowns slightly and carefully extends one of the doodled spider's legs to match the other seven. Their length is now objectively perfect.) 

…

 _I_ … 

_I am_

( ~~Jonathan Sims?~~ )

_I am on my back staring up at her, and I cannot tell if it is blood or tears tracking down my cheeks, and she is twisting her hand in my hair and pulling to expose my throat, and her smiling-snarling-smiling mouth is elongating into..._

_I am dragging my own pitiful nails down her back and encouraging her with desperate pleas, and though her growls are no longer language I know she is saying how exquisite bliss-soaked prey tastes_

(make the statement)

_And I am saying yes when she asks if I want my throat torn out as we finish_

_And I am saying yes when she asks if I want to know my throat is being torn out_

(yes. yes.)

_I am saying yes and now I am screaming yes and she is touching me so that everything is blinding and everything is deafening and everything is burning._

… 

(it's a little less confusing now, the things people do to feel this way. when they want to feel this way.)

… 

_And now, I am waiting for Daisy to burn._

(what immortal hand or eye?)

_Daisy, Daisy, burning bright..._

(could frame thy fearful symmetry?)

_In the forests of the night…_

“Daisy!”

Everything, still burning, went still. Then Jon realized only he burned. Then he differentiated the burning into all sorts of pain, then localized the pain to his manifold injuries. Only then did he dare to open his eyes.

Daisy stared unblinking, still laying between his legs, arms braced on either side of his head. Looking perfectly normal, perfectly human, except for the blood on her lips and chin. As his mind slowly began to clear, the memory of what she had looked like, sounded like, felt and tasted like, blurred and slipped out of his grasp like fog in the harsh midday sun. It didn't fade entirely though; a faint outline of snapping carnivorous teeth, sharp muzzle, tufted ears overlaid itself on her face. He didn't want that to vanish, didn't want to forget what she was and what she'd nearly done. A kind of grief surged through him - he should be dead. Wanted to die. Now it would all begin again, the chase, the desperate attempts to avoid the inevitable defeat. The ending of his life. Hadn't Daisy said he deserved it? Maybe he had decided that. 

Jon effortfully turned his aching neck to see Basira, whose hand hovered over her gun. Her habitual look of studied impassivity cracked at the edges: in the widened eyes, the trembling mouth, the flared nostrils. If Daisy killed him now, Basira would never draw that gun in time to save him. If that was even what she wanted. Or what Jon wanted. 

Basira's eyes darted to his and immediately away, and the first wash of real, independent thought froze into an ice pick of pressure in his temples. He was… oh, God. What must he look like? 

A cold clear image appeared in his head and tears began to flow unbidden and unstemmable. He refused to look away from her, though she assiduously avoided his gaze. Looking at Daisy might bring him under again.

“Daisy... let him go.”

She did; she pulled out of him and left him lying there. He slowly sat up despite the agony that swamped him, pressed his palms to his eyes and _relished_ trying to repress the tears. Daisy’s influence still wove through his emotions but he could tell that these were his. That hateful foreign craving simmered under his skin instead of boiling. His mind was his own again, as far as he could tell. And as for the rest… plenty had already taken pieces of him. He could keep living with that. He knew exactly how little he could do about it. 

They stood above him and spoke in low, intense voices; he could not bring himself to listen, but he could control the yearning to lie at Daisy's feet every time he heard her voice. He was groping for his jeans when Basira noticed and dropped to one knee to lay her coat over his shoulders. He clutched it tightly around him - thanked her in a whisper, apologized for staining it. He didn't think she heard him, but he heard her clearly:

“I always thought… you just killed monsters.”

Jon couldn’t tell which word she emphasized, which word she now disbelieved: _killed_ , or _monsters_.

**Author's Note:**

> [RAINN for 24/7 sexual assault hotline/live chat](https://www.rainn.org/)   
>  [Trevor Project 24/7 hotline/live chat for LGBTQ individuals](https://www.thetrevorproject.org/)


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